Facebook follies

After a bit of prodding from some friends, I joined Facebook. I have now been on for about 3 weeks and I have to say I just don’t get it.

So far my Facebook friends are actually my real life friends. I haven’t made new friends and there haven’t been any blasts from the past yet (which I have to say I’m very OK with!). So while I communicate with some of my friends on Facebook now, it seems that instead of just firing off an email or responding to blog posts, we just do exactly the same thing but on Facebook.

I have located a few old faces that I’m somewhat curious about. The thing is, though, I’m not curious enough to ask them to “be my friend” or to open up a door that involves the obligation of reconnecting. I’m curious in the way that makes you happy to run into someone on the street, chat animatedly for 15 minutes, exchange phone numbers and never speak again until you next run into each other. So far all I've done on Facebook is lurk on profiles or gawk at photos astonished at the "ageing well" or "ageing badly" spectrum. Again, similar to seeing a blast from the past at the pub one night.

I think I can see how Facebook would be a great thing for single folks, though. It seems to allow for that “non-dating,” trying so hard to appear not interested thing that plagues our generation of singles. It seems like the perfect avenue to follow up with the friend of a friend’s hot buddy that you met at a bar one night . . . and the Facebook profile certainly allows for the “look how cool and interesting I am” factor. There are a million bells and whistles you can add to demonstrate just how savvy and hilarious you are.

So far, the only thing I’m really enjoying about Facebook are some of the bells and whistles which can entail trivia-like games, personality quizzes, etc. – but I can certainly find all this on Web 1.0. I’m also enjoying the fact that I can snoop on my little brother’s social life.

I don’t know – maybe I’m missing the boat here, but it just seems like a lot of hype over email on steroids. I’m curious as to your thoughts!